Larry Trask, a world expert on Basque linguistics and the history of the Basque language, passed away on March 28, 2004. Larry contributed extensively to several online communities, including Basque-L and the Indoeuropean list. This collection of his postings is dedicated in his memory.

The Basque language (in Basque, euskara) is spoken by about 660,000
people (1991 census) at the western end of the Pyrenees, along the Bay
of Biscay. The Franco-Spanish frontier runs through the middle of the
country, leaving perhaps 80,000 speakers on the French side and the
remaining half million or so on the Spanish side. The Basque-speaking
region runs for about 100 miles (160 km) from west to east and for
about 30 miles (50 km) from north to south. The language is found in
most of the Spanish provinces of Vizcaya and Guipuzcoa, in northern
Navarre, in part of Alava, and in the three former French provinces of
Labourd, Basse-Navarre, and Soule, which now form part of the
departement of Pyrenees-Atlantique. The language now occupies about
half of the Basque Country (Basque Euskal Herria), the territory which
is historically and ethnically Basque; Basque has been lost in modern
times from the southern half of the country.

An ancestral form of Basque, called Aquitanian, is attested in the
Roman period in the form of about 400 personal names and 70 divine
names. Many of the elements in these names are transparently Basque.
Examples: Aq. Nescato, Bq. neskato `young girl'; Aq. Cison, Bq. gizon
`man'; Aq. Andere, Bq. andere `lady'; Aq. Sembe-, Bq. seme `son';
Aq. Ombe-, Umme, Bq. ume `child'; Aq. Sahar, Bq. zahar `old';
Aq. Osso-, Bq. otso `wolf'. Aquitanian is chiefly attested north of
the Pyrenees, in Gaul; it is only sparsely recorded south of the
Pyrenees, and most specialists believe the language must have
extended its territory to the south and west after the collapse of
Roman power in the west.

In the early medieval period Basque was spoken throughout the modern
provinces of Navarre and Alava, in much of the Rioja and Burgos, and
in the Pyrenees as far east as the valley of Aran. Since that time
the language has been gradually losing ground to Spanish and Catalan,
though the frontier with Gascon in the north has been highly stable.

Apart from the Aquitanian materials, the first evidence of Basque is
the Emilian Glosses, two glosses in a Latin manuscript usually dated
to about AD 950. (Interestingly, the same manuscript contains the
first attestation of Castilian Spanish.) Thereafter we find a steady
trickle of glosses, glossaries, single words, magical charms, poems,
songs, and other materials, as well as a large number of personal
names and place names, and a few longer texts such as personal
letters. The first published book in Basque was a collection of poems
entitled Linguae Vasconum Primitiae, published by the French Basque
Bernard Detchepare in 1545. Since then publication in Basque has been
continuous, apart from periods of persecution during two dictatorships
in Spain.

The most strenuous efforts have been made to identify genetic links
between Basque and other languages. With the single exception of
Aquitanian, all these attempts have been failures, and there is no
shred of persuasive evidence that Basque is related to any other
language at all, living or dead. The frequent suggestions to the
contrary in the literature may be safely disregarded; most of these,
in any case, are the work of non-specialists who know little about
Basque.

Basque is thus the sole survivor of the ancient pre-Indo-European
languages of Europe. Some enthusiasts have therefore concluded that
the Basques themselves must be the direct survovors of the earliest
known human inhabitants of Europe, the Cro-Magnon people, but there is
no way of evaluating such a claim. It is noteworthy, however, that
the geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, who has compiled a genetic
map of Europe, observes that the Basques are genetically sharply
distinct from their neighbors, particularly in Spain; in France, the
genetic boundary between Basques and non-Basques is more diffuse and
shades off toward the Garonne, an observation which is entirely in
line with what is known about the history of the language.

Orthography

For centuries there was no standard orthography, and Basque was
written with Romance spelling conventions supplemented by various
additional devices to represent sounds not present in Romance. During
the early years of the 20th century, a bizarre and impractical
orthography employing a blizzard of pointless diacritics was widely
used; this largely disappeared after the Spanish Civil War. In 1964
the Royal Basque Language Academy (Euskaltzaindia) promulgated a new
standard orthography; this met some resistance at first but is now
almost universally used.

The Basque alphabet is as follows: a b d e f g h i j k l m n &ntilde o p r
s t u x z. The letters c q v w y are not considered part of the
alphabet, but are of course used in writing foreign words and names;
when necessary, they take their ordinary place in the alphabet. The
digraphs dd ll rr ts tt tx tz represent single sounds, but they are
regarded as sequences of letters, not as separate single letters. One
other digraph, dz, is used in writing a few onomatopoeic items, but
not otherwise.

Phonology

There is no standard pronunciation of Basque, but the regional
variation is not great, and the standard orthography represents most
regional accents rather well. The chief differences are the presence
or absence of the aspiration, the pronunciation of rr, and above all
the pronunciation of j.

Tap: /r/
Trill: /rr/ (This is a voiced uvular fricative for many French Basques.)

(These two contrast only between vowels, and only r is written in
all other positions.)

Diaphone:

There is one more consonant, spelled &ltj&gt, whose pronunciation
varies dramatically across the country. Depending on region, this is
a voiced palatal glide (like English &lty&gt), a voiced palatal plosive
(like /dd/ above), a voiced palatal affricate (resembling English
&ltj&gt), a voiced palatal fricative (resembling French &ltj&gt), a voiceless
palatal fricative (like /x/ above), or a voiceless velar or uvular
fricative (like Castilian Spanish &ltj&gt).

Vowels:

/i e a o u/

(The Souletin dialect has also a front rounded vowel /u"/ and a
set of contrastive nasalized vowels.)

Diphthongs:

/ai ei oi ui au eu/

Word-accent:

Many western varieties have a pitch-accent. Most other varieties
have a stress-accent, but the details vary considerably according to
region.

Morphology

Nominal morphology is strongly agglutinating. Verbal morphology is
also strongly agglutinating, but at the same time it exhibits a high
degree of analytical character. The language is exclusively
suffixing, apart from a few prefixes found in verbal morphology.
Basque is rich in word-forming suffixes, but word-forming prefixes are
virtually absent, except in neologisms. Compounding is highly
productive in forming nouns and verbs and, to a lesser extent,
adjectives.

Basque has no grammatical gender and no noun classes. Morphological
sex-marking is almost absent, except that the sex of an addressee
addressed with the intimate second-person singular pronoun is sometimes
(not always) marked in the verb.

Nouns cannot be directly inflected: it is noun phrases, and only noun
phrases, which are inflected in Basque. With only minor exceptions, a
noun phrase always contains a determiner; with just one exception, it
contains only one determiner. Determiners are of two types: definite
and indefinite. There are four definite determiners: the three
demonstratives and the definite article (this last is a suffix).
These four distinguish number (singular and plural). All other
determiners are indefinite and cannot distinguish number.

There are over a dozen cases, all of them marked by agglutinated
case-suffixes. With only trivial phonological complications, all noun
phrases in the language are inflected identically, except that animate
NPs form their local cases somewhat differently from inanimate NPs.

Nominal morphology is ergative. The subject of an intransitive verb
and the direct object of a transitive verb stand in the absolutive
case (suffix zero). The subject of a transitive verb stands in the
ergative case (suffix -k). Ergative case-marking is thoroughgoing: it
applies to all types and combinations of NPs, in all tenses, aspects,
and moods, and in all types of clauses, main and subordinate, finite
and non-finite.

There are two other suffixes which are sometimes treated as cases, but
these cannot be added to a full NP containing a determiner.

Partitive: -ik (direct object of negated verb; subject of negative
existential; indefinite whole of which a part is
expressed)

Essive/Translative: -tzat (capacity in which someone functions or
into which someone is translated (`as', `for',
zero, as in `I want you for my wife'))

Verbal morphology is overwhelmingly periphrastic, and all but a
handful of verbs have only periphrastic forms. A periphrastic
verb-form consists of a non-finite form marked at most for aspect plus
a finite auxiliary; the auxiliary is marked for tense and mood and
carries all agreement. Agreement is extensive: a finite verb
generally agrees in person and number with its subject, with its
direct object (if any), and with its indirect object (if any).
Third-person agreement is zero, except for indirect objects, and
except that plurality is regularly marked. Agreement is usually
ergative: prefixes for absolutives, suffixes for ergatives. Certain
past-tense forms are exceptional in having ergatives marked by
prefixes. Indirect objects are marked by suffixes preceded by overt
morphs flagging them as datives.

Intransitive verbs are conjugated with the auxiliary verb izan `be',
which also functions as an independent verb. Transitive verbs are
conjugated with an auxiliary meaning `have'; this verb is historically
*edun, but it has lost its non-finite forms, which are supplied
suppletively by ukan `have' in the French Basque varieties and by izan
`be' elsewhere. This same verb functions as the ordinary main verb
`have' in French Basque varieties only. For historical reasons, a
semantically arbitrary subclass of intransitive verbs requires
transitive morphology, including ergative subjects and the transitive
auxiliary.

Both intransitive and transitive verbs can take indirect objects; here
are a few examples (the verbs gustatu `be pleasing' and jarraiki
`follow' are intransitive and take an indirect object, while eman
`give' is transitive and takes both direct and indirect objects):

All the forms cited here are in the ordinary indicative mood, but
there exist also various imperative, subjunctive, potential,
conditional and irrealis forms. Any reference grammar will provide a
list of these; many of them are now purely literary, especially in the
south, with non-finite forms being preferred in speech.

Pronouns and Demonstratives

The personal pronouns are ni `I`, hi `you' (singular intimate), zu
`you' (singular unmarked), gu `we', zuek `you' (plural). The intimate
hi is of extraordinarily restricted use: it is regularly used only
between siblings and between close friends of the same sex and roughly
the same age. It may optionally be used in addressing children. It
is not normally used between adults of opposite sex, not even between
man and wife, except when teasing or abusing. It is not used in
addressing animals, except when abusing them. It is never used in
prayer.

In general, there are no third-person pronouns, and demonstratives are
used instead when required. Western varieties, however, have recently
created third-person pronouns bera `he/she' and berak (or eurak)
`they'; these forms are historically intensive pronouns, `he himself'
and so on.

There are three demonstratives: hau `this', hori `that' (just there),
and hura `that' (over there). All show stem-suppletion.

Syntax

Basic word order is SOV (Subject-Object-Verb), but this order is not
rigid. The major phrases of a sentence, including the verb, can be
permuted with some freedom, and this variation is used for thematic
purposes -- for example, a phrase may be focused by placing it
immediately before the verb. The order of elements within major
phrases is rigid.

Basque is head-final: all modifiers (except lexical adjectives)
precede their heads; this includes syntactically complex modifiers
like relative clauses. The language is exclusively postpositional.

Basque is predominantly dependent-marking: for example, in a
possessive phrase only the possessor NP is marked. Grammatical
relations, though, are double-marked, by overt case-endings and by
verbal agreement.

The definite article is a suffix, -a in the singular and -ak in the
plural; it is of wider use than the English definite article. The
indefinite article bat is of correspondingly restricted use; it
commonly corresponds to English `a certain'.

The language is rich in non-finite verb-forms, and these are
frequently used. Gerunds and perfective participles can take
case-marked NPs as arguments, and gerunds themselves can take the full
range of case-suffixes; such constructions provide a range of
non-finite clauses.

There are a number of aspectual and modal verbs, most of which are
compound in form. Examples: behar izan `have to, must'; ahal izan `be
able to, can'; ohi izan `be in the habit of ...ing'; ari izan `be
...ing'; hasi `start ...ing'; nahi izan `want to'.

A central characteristic of Basque syntax is the use of -ko phrases.
A -ko phrase may be constructed from virtually any adverbial,
regardless of its internal structure, by suffixing -ko to it; this
suffix induces certain phonological changes, notably the loss of the
locative case-suffix -n. The resulting phrase is a preposed
adjectival modifier.

Izarra agertu zitzaien `The star appeared to them';
izarra agertu zitzieneko garaian `at the time when the star
appeared to them'

From etxean `in the house', we have etxeko `who/which is in the
house'; this is used to form such phrases as etxeko atea `the door of
the house', etxeko andrea `the lady of the house', etxeko giltza `the
key to the house', and etxekoak `the people of the house'. Compare
this with the ordinary genitive case etxearen, as in etxearen izena
`the name of the house' and etxearen historia `the history of the
house'. Many textbooks make the mistake of regarding a -ko phrase
like etxeko as a separate "locative genitive" case, but this is an
error of analysis: such a form is a -ko phrase like any other.

Spanish Basque varieties have two copulas, izan (= Spanish ser) and
egon (= Spanish estar); French Basque varieties make only limited use
of the second as a copula but use it as the ordinary verb for `stay,
wait'. The main verb `have' is ukan (that is, *edun) in the French
Basque varieties; Spanish Basque varieties use eduki, which in the
north means `hold'.

The late 19th-century nationalist Sabino de Arana coined many hundreds
of neologisms, most of them badly formed. Only a few of these have
found a place in the language: Euskadi `Basque state'; idatzi `write';
eratorri `derive'; ikurrin `(Basque) flag'; gudari `(Basque) soldier';
aberri `fatherland'; abertzale `patriot'. Most of his other eccentric
creations are museum pieces today: donoki `heaven'; sendi 'family';
abesti `song'; olerkari `poet'; idazti `book'; gotzain `bishop'; and
so on.

In recent years, the use of Basque for political, cultural, and
technical purposes has led to the coining of thousands of neologisms.
Here are just a few: hozkailu `refrigrator'; hauteskunde `election';
lagunkide `sympathizer'; sudurkari `nasal'; harremanak `relations';
biderkatu `multiply'; ikerketa `research'; ortzune `cosmos';
izenlagun `complex adjectival modifier'. In addition, a number of
archaic and regional words have been pressed into service, such as
berezkuntza `distinction' and etorki `origin, source'.

The indigenous verb irauli `turn over' provides some good examples of
modern word-formation. This has been given the extended meaning
`revolt, rebel'. From it we have iraultza `revolution', with the
native suffix -tza, which forms abstract nouns of action, and
iraultzaile `revolutionary', with the native suffix -tzaile `one who
performs'. This last yields kontrairaultzaile `counterrevolutionary',
with the new prefix kontra `against', from the postposition kontra
`against', which is borrowed from the Romance preposition contra.

Numerals

The Basque numeral system is vigesimal. Here are the lower numerals
and a representative sample of the others; the second form, where
given, is French Basque.

Let's analyze the first sentence. Eusko Jaurlaritza is `the Basque
Government'; this is one of Sabino Arana's neologisms. The ending -ko
marks this as a -ko phrase modifying Hezkuntza Saila `the Education
Department'. This in turn bears the ergative suffix -k, marking it as
the subject of a transitive verb. Next, aste is `week' and hon- is
the stem of hau `this'; with the locative ending -n, this phrase means
`this week'. (The morph -ta- is an anomaly found in certain local
case-forms.) Now aurkeztu is the verb `introduce', here with the
future suffix -ko, and du is the appropriate transitive auxiliary
form; the ending -en shows that this is a relative clause modifying
what comes next. Obviously, eskola mapa is `school map' (the article
-a is invisible here); this bears the dative case-ending -i because it
is the object of the postposition buruz `about', which governs the
dative case. The word hainbat is `so many', or here just `many', and
kezka is `problem'; this takes no article and no plural, because a
quantifier like hainbat does not permit their presence. Finally,
zabaldu is the perfective participle of the verb `spread' (here,
better `open up'), and da is the appropriate intransitive auxiliary --
intransitive, because the verb is being used passively.

Fairly literal translation: So many problems have been opened up
concerning the school map which the Education Department of the Basque
Government will introduce this week.

Good translation: A number of difficulties have appeared with the
school map which will be introduced this week by the Education
Department of the Basque Government.

Now, the second sentence. The word sare is `net', here better
`network', and publiko is `public'. Next, ordezkari is
`representative', and it bears the dative plural ending -ei. The word
ez is the negative `not', which induces a shifted word order. This is
followed by the auxiliary form zaiela, which is intransitive and
marked for no subject but for a third-plural indirect object (which we
have just seen); this auxiliary also bears the suffix -la, which is
comparable in function to English `that': it shows that this clause is
a subordinate (complement) clause. Next, inolako means `of any kind'
(this is a -ko phrase from the adverb inola `in any way'). Now
informazio is `information'; it takes the partitive affix -(r)ik
because it is the logical object of the negated verb coming up (which
is, however, in the passive, so that informaziorik is technically its
subject). That verb is eman `give'; the periphrastic form eman zaie
means `has been given to them', but the full form here is ez zaiela
... eman, meaning `that (something) has not been given to them'. The
verb haizatu is literally `blow', but it's being used metaphorically
here to mean `protest, complain', and du is the appropriate transitive
auxiliary form. Finally, EILAS sindikatua means `the EILAS
syndicate', and the final ergative -k marks this as the subject of the
transitive verb haizatu du.

Translation: The EILAS syndicate has complained that no information of
any kind has been given to the representatives of the public school
system.

The third sentence is slightly more complex. First, Argia is the name
of the magazine, here with the ergative suffix -k. The verb jakin
means `know' when it is imperfective, but `find out' when (as here) it
stands in its perfective form. The now-familiar transitive auxiliary
du takes two suffixes: -en to show that this is a subordinate clause,
and the instrumental -z to express the sense of `as'. Naturally, sare
pribatu is `private net(work)', with article -a and the locative
case-suffix -n, meaning `in'. The verb geratu is `remain, stay', and
the following auxiliary is dira, which is intransitive and marked for
a third-plural subject; the suffix -en again shows that this a
relative clause. The word ikastola means `Basque-language school',
and here it takes the ergative plural ending -ek. The verb osatu is
literally `complete', but here it should be read as `put together,
form'; the transitive auxiliary this time is dute, marked for a
third-plural subject, and this auxiliary too takes the suffix -en to
show that it belongs to a relative clause. The phrase partaide
kooperatiba means `cooperative partnership', and this too takes the
ergative suffix. Next, eta is `and', and Eneko Oregi is a man's name,
again with the ergative suffix. The adverb berriki means `recently'.
Now comes a typical bit of Basque syntax. The verb izan is literally
`be', but here it's being used suppletively to provide the perfective
participle of the defective verb meaning `have'. The suffix -ta (here
-da for phonological reasons) turns the participle into an adverb, so
that it can now take the suffix -ko to produce a -ko phrase. This -ko
phrase is the whole vast sequence beginning with sare pribatuan, a
complete sentence with a non-finite verb which has been turned into a
participial adverb. What all this modifies is merely bilera `meeting'
(the article is again invisible). Now modu is `manner, way', and txar
is `bad'; again we have the article -a and the locative ending -n,
with a minor but regular phonological complication. Finally, amaitu
is the perfective participle of the verb `finish', and zen is the
intransitive auxiliary form, this time in the past tense, putting the
whole verb form into the past.

Translation: As Argia has learned, the meeting recently held between
the cooperative partnership formed by the ikastolas which have
remained in the private system and Eneko Oregi ended badly.

Somewhat more literally, that long phrase in the middle is this: the
meeting (which) the cooperative partnership which the ikastolas which
have remained in the private system have formed and Eneko Oregi
recently had.

Both of these teach the Guipuzcoan variety of Donostia (San
Sebastian); the second has an accompanying cassette.

There are many other textbooks, most of them in Spanish or French;
these are highly variable in quality. There are also a number of
teaching materials written entirely in Basque; these have to be used
with a teacher.

At present the best reference grammar in English is this:

Saltarelli, Mario. 1988. Basque. London: Croom Helm.

This book is one of a well-known series based on a questionnaire, and
it has the same strengths and weaknesses as the other volumes in the
series: lots of information, especially on the fine points of syntax,
but a strange and unhelpful organization and no index, making it
difficult for the reader to look things up. This too describes the
Guipuzcoan dialect.

The Dutch linguist Rudolf de Rijk is currently writing a grammar of
Basque; I understand that it is well advanced, but as of July 1996 its
publication has not yet been announced. I would expect this book to
be more useful than the Saltarelli book.

A team of specialists under the general editorship of Jose Ignacio
Hualde is drawing up plans for a projected reference grammar (in
English) which will be very large and detailed, but this work is years
away from completion.

There exists an excellent reference grammar of the French Basque
varieties Labourdin and Low Navarrese:

This is the best choice for someone interested particularly in the
French Basque varieties, but note that it is linguistically
unsophisticated and contains no adequate account of phonetics and
phonology.

Anyone interested in linguistic work on Basque must become familiar
with this dictionary.

Since 1987 the Royal Basque Language Academy has been publishing a
massive and comprehensive dictionary; only the first few volumes have
so far appeared.

On the historical side, the best account of the history and prehistory
of Basque is this:

Trask, R. L. 1996. The History of Basque. London: Routledge.

This book will be out in October or November 1996. It includes a
history of the Basque Country, an external history of the language
(that is, an account of the historical records available), a thumbnail
sketch of the language, a detailed account of what is known about the
prehistory of Basque phonology and grammar, an account of the sources
of the Basque vocabulary, lists of structured vocabulary with
etymologies (numerals, kinship terms, color terms, animal and plant
names, day and month names, and so on), information on given names and
surnames, house names, and place names, and a critical account of the
attempts at finding links between Basque and other languages.

Larry Trask
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England

larryt@cogs.susx.ac.uk

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